FinCEN Opinion on Samourai Wallet ‘Irrelevant’ in Roman Storm Case

Prosecutors in the case towards Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm try to to sidestep the chance {that a} New York choose forces them at hand over further proof that would assist Storm’s case.

In a Wednesday letter to the court docket, prosecutors pushed again towards Storm’s legal professionals’ assertions that they’d failed to fulfill their so-called Brady obligations — a constitutional requirement for prosecutors to show over any doubtlessly useful proof to the protection earlier than trial.

At the center of the controversy is a latest manufacturing of proof in one other case in the Southern District of New York (SDNY): the authorized pursuit of Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill. Both circumstances contain a crypto mixing service that prosecutors allege was knowingly used to launder crime proceeds,

In the Samourai Wallet case, nonetheless, prosecutors just lately admitted to having a dialog with two Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) officers in 2023 — earlier than urgent fees — in which the federal government workers stated they didn’t consider the blending service would qualify as a cash transmitting enterprise below their pointers and didn’t want a license to function. Lawyers for Rodriguez and Hill accused prosecutors of suppressing vital proof and violating their proper to due course of. Last week, the choose overseeing the case denied their movement for a listening to on the matter, telling them as an alternative to incorporate their considerations in their pre-trial movement due on the finish of the month.

Though the circumstances are separate, legal professionals for Roman Storm expressed concern that the prosecution’s failure to tell them of their communications with FinCEN concerning Samourai Wallet’s standing as a cash transmitting enterprise additionally doubtlessly constituted a Brady violation in Storm’s case.

In their Wednesday response, prosecutors stated that the FinCEN dialog wasn’t proof.t was an opinion, not a reality, they said, and due to this fact not required to be turned over to the protection. Prosecutors additionally claimed that their dialogue with FinCEN was irrelevant to Storm’s case, as a result of it wasn’t particularly about Tornado Cash.

“Tornado Cash simply was not part of the conversation,” prosecutors wrote. “While Samourai Wallet and the Tornado Cash service may share some superficial similarities, they operated quite differently.”

Prosecutors stated that they didn’t have related conversations with FinCEN about Tornado Cash, claiming that there have been “no such interactions comparable to those described in the Rodriguez Disclosures.”

“As the government has repeatedly explained to the defense in this case, the government has neither sought nor obtained an opinion from any employee at FinCEN — or any other government agency — regarding whether the Tornado Cash service is subject to registration obligations,” prosecutors wrote. “Such an opinion — especially an informal opinion offered by employees who expressly disclaim to be speaking for the agency — would not be legally admissible and would not constitute Brady material.”

The case towards Storm is predicted to start on July 14 in New York.